Retailers hope that shoppers like Lesa Tafoya turned out in droves on Friday for after-Christmas sales.

Tafoya scrupulously avoided buying anything for herself while holiday shopping this year, but immediately put some of her Christmas gift money to use by snapping up a few small indulgences at J.C. Penney early morning sale.

"Because the economy is so bad, there are some really good deals in the stores today," said the Aurora mother of four.

Retailers nationwide are anxiously waiting to see whether the traditional Dec. 26 surge of deal hunters like Tafoya will provide salvation for a Christmas season that's shaping up to be the worst in four decades.

Early indications are grim: According to preliminary data from SpendingPulse - a division of MasterCard Advisors that tracks total sales paid for by credit card, checks and cash - retail sales fell between 5.5 percent and 8 percent during the holiday season compared with last year.

Sales of women's clothing dropped nearly 23 percent while men's clothing sales slipped more than 14 percent, according to SpendingPulse. Footwear sales fell 13.5 percent. Sales of electronics and appliances fell even more drastically, dropping almost 27 percent.

Online retailer Amazon.com provided a rare piece of good news Friday, saying it saw a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day. Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said.

Seattle-based Amazon did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002.

Holiday sales typically account for 30 percent to 50 percent of a retailer's annual total, but rising unemployment, home foreclosures, the stock market decline and other economic worries led many shoppers to slash their shopping budgets this year.

Strasburg resident Bertha Coburn trimmed 25 percent from her holiday spending this year, mostly by frequenting thrift stores. On Friday morning, she and her sister, Dean Peavler, were being extra picky as they engaged in their years-long tradition of hitting the after-Christmas sales together.

"We're only looking at the signs that say 75 percent off," Coburn said.

Some 40 shoppers were lined up outside the doors of the Northfield Stapleton J.C. Penney at 5:30 a.m. - the store's earliest ever post-Christmas opening - to take advantage of "doorbuster" deals that included 75 percent off all holiday decorations and 70 percent off all gold and sterling silver jewelry.